This blog site initially focused on renewable energy and the environment. But that was SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth. My next book, SS for Humanity, opened the subject area to everything else, including SETI, the afterlife, travel and cuisine. However, I still provide, now and then, SIMPLE SOLUTIONS.

Total Pageviews

Thursday, February 25, 2010

TODAY IN AMSTERDAM

My flight arrived in Schiphol (Copenhagen), and, for the first time since leaving India, I did not see any snow on the ground. After a hiccup regarding my room, you can see to the right my canal view, and to the left, from a canal cruise I took.

While you can just about walk anywhere of any worth within half an hour, their mass transit assortment is remarkable and efficient. Surprisingly enough, there are only three major canals, with an assortment of cross water traffic. There are 2500 houseboats, 90 man-made islands and anywhere from 1280 to 1500 bridges.

There are several types of sites for certain kinds of drugs: "coffee shops" provide marijuana and hashish and smart shops go into mushrooms and ecstasy. Menus are provided and one cigarette would cost from a few dollars up to $10. Generally, you smoke it in that establishment, for it is illegal to use these products anywhere else. Here is a YouTube clip about smoking and eating magic mushrooms. It's a lot more complicated than this, but you get the idea that Amsterdam is not in Kansas.

All the above said, Amsterdam is the standard, clean, safe, historic European town. The population is actually smaller (750,000) than Honolulu (around 900,000), but there is a vitality here that comes partially with everything being packed into half a circle of one mile radius, plus lots of people just walking around, many using bicycles, and I almost ran into a dozen of them.

The culture oozes and the range of countries for food is wide. Oud Sluis is #29 on the list of 50 best. Chef Sergio was inspired by El Bullis (#1), as was Chef Rene of Noma (#3). Alas, Oud Sluis is located 100 miles away from Amsterdam. Ah, but there is a second on the list, at #89, De Librije, which is, alas, 50 miles away in Zwolles.

-

The Dow Jones Industrials were really down for a while, then recovered for a minus 53 to 10,321. World markets almost all decreased. Crude oil suddenly dropped a couple of bucks/barrel and is now at $78/barrel. Gold is up $8 to $1106/toz.

TRANSLATE TO YOUR LANGUAGE

SEARCH this blog

HONOLULU TIME

Most Popular Posts

For the longest time, the day when the most visitors (3,356) clicked on this blog site was 27February2010 on THE CHILE EARTHQUAKE. Why? Probably because this posting was linked to my Huffington Post article of that day reporting on HAWAII TSUNAMI. Natural disasters tend to increase readership. However, on 6March2017THE WONDERS OF ALCOHOL drew 6498. Further, too, on 6June2017, the one-month tally of visitors was 70,219, or 2340/day. For nine years until mid-2017 this daily average consistently remained under 500/day.

Interesting to note that not one of the top 20 postings reports on natural disasters (not sure what those numbers stand for, but they indicate a kind of relativity), the newest of this list goes back five years, and the highest rated this year is just over 300. Clearly, people are reading my older postings, but there is no sense to which subject areas are popular.

VIEWERS

VIEWERS X

WE MUST TAKE ACTION ON GLOBAL WARMING NOW!

Last year surpassed 2014 as the warmest year on record since the mid to late 19th century. Global sea level also rose to a new high, 2.75 inches higher than in 1993, when record-keeping began. Tropical cyclones were 25% higher than the average. The Arctic is melting, severely.

WHAT IS THE PRICE OF OIL?

WHAT WILL BE THE FUTURE PRICE OF OIL?

Click on:
FUTURE PRICE OF OIL
to gain a sense of what the financial community thinks will be the future price of crude oil. When I last viewed this Chicago Board of Trade (a NYMEX company) future contracts page on 110March2014, the futures price of oil in December 2022 was $78.59. This makes no sense to me.

CONSUMER PRICE INDEX AND THE INFLATION RATE

The CPI is based on 1984 at 100. Thus, 241 means a 241% inflation since 1984.
There are various ways to look at this, but one is to subtract 100 from 241, getting 141, so the effective inflation today, nearly a third of a century later, is 141% higher. Another comparison is that the CPI in 1916 was 10.9, and is at 240.853 today, a hundred years later. Thus, the average commodity that sold for a buck then, today goes for $22.

Calculate Your Body-Mass Index

ABOUT ME

I am Director Emeritus of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii and co-founder of the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research.
I have published three SIMPLE SOLUTION books and have written more than 100 articles for the HUFFINGTON POST. I am working with an enlightened team to pioneer the BLUE REVOLUTION (http://bluerevolutionhawaii.blogspot.com/),
beginning with the development of the Pacific International Ocean Station.